SCOTT JACOBS

Throughout it all, the hitting streaks, the timely doubles, the infectious smile, and the dreads, Manny Ramirez was in every sense of the word, a memorable character.  As eccentric as they come.  So with his career clearly on the decline, his prestige nothing more than a name, “Manny,” and a team in the Rays clearly going nowhere it made sense that this year would probably be his swan song.

Call it a disturbing tune.

Manny Ramirez abruptly retired today, after reports began to leak that he tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in Spring Training, an automatic 100 game suspension for the slugger who was once larger than Fenway’s Green Monster.

Now he’s another sham: a bum who tried to hold on way too long, another black eye to the P.E.D. era that just won’t quite go away.

His numbers are Hall of Fame worthy, and his whacky unexplainable personality is the stuff of legends, to be told to generations of baseball fans to come. To leave in such a distasteful manner is rather fitting for the slugger, who didn’t do anything by the book.  Rather than let another suspension zap anything left of the credibility he had as a ballplayer, he buried his head between his legs and left the sport on a whim, an embarrassing escape from the sport for one of baseball’s all time feared swingers.

“I can’t put my finger on you. You’re unpredictable. Kind of mysterious,”  Allison says to Carl in the movie Yes Man.  The same could have been said of Manny.

No player was harder to explain.

Manny played in 2302 games, scored 1544 runs, recorded 2754 hits, 547 doubles, and smacked 555 home runs out of the yard.  He knocked in 1831 RBIs and walked 1329 times in an 18 year career unlike any other.

Yet none of it seems to matter anymore.

His numbers however gaudy are clearly marred by his now 2 positive drug tests (and however many before they started seriously testing for this stuff).  Another indictment to a sport littered with great players gone P.E.D. stale.  No sport has watched it’s heroes and titans fall faster than baseball.  First it was Rafael Palmeiro, then Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and now Manny.

I know we’re supposed to allow our players to be innocent before proven guilty, but this disturbing trends of stars fading right as they exit the game is a problem that greatly haunts the best players of today.  Once again all our stars are on a close watch, and how can anyone take what they do seriously?

In Harvey Frommer’s Remembering Fenway, a book of iconic Fenway Park pictures, the back cover features Manny stepping out of the giant Green Monster scoreboard, with a look that just sort of sums his career up.  That look?  Confusion, mystery, an aura of bizarre that exceeded anything beyond rationalization.

But that was Manny.  He developed into an elite power hitter in Cleveland, than got a fat payday from the Red Sox in 2000 ($160 million for 8 years) — a contract that brought incredible success to the Red Sox (including that long awaited World Series title in 2004 and 2007).  When things soured in Boston he became the savior in Los Angeles, reviving a dead in the water Dodgers team during an incredible summer of love tour in LA. Dodger Stadium quickly turned into MannyWood, and Ramirez was treated like a god once more.  But his numbers began to fade, and then the big blow — his first failed drug test for performance enhancing drugs cost him 50 games.

From there he became a sideshow, getting dealt from the Dodgers to the White Sox last season, and doing nothing to revive Chicago’s playoff hopes.

He garnered little interest in the free agency market this past offseason, until the Rays scooped him up in a desperate P.R. ploy to sabotage their poor fan base into thinking they still cared.

“I’m here, like I said, because I love the game, I love to compete,” said Ramirez at his press conference introducing him and Johnny Damon to the Rays. “It doesn’t matter how much money you make.  If you love the game, it doesn’t matter. What you want is a chance to prove to people that you still can do it. So for me, it was not about the money, I could have gone someplace else.”

Apparently he didn’t love the game enough to respect it and he certainly didn’t prove to people that he still could do it.

And in the end he did go somewhere else.  He hit the showers.  Permanently.

Photo: Getty

SCOTT JACOBS

Today Manny Ramirez was suspended 50 games by Major League Baseball for failing a drug test.  Shocking!

Did I suspect that Manny was using performance enhancers?  No, not really.  Did I think that a grown man would use a drug that women use during pregnancy?  Ha, another no.  But is it all that surprising that another big name baseball player bit the performance enhancing dust?  Not in the least.

You would think a guy that signed a two year $45 million deal would be a little more careful, but hey “Manny’s just being Manny.”  The Dodgers slugger claims he wasn’t taking steroids, but reports are already surfacing that he failed the test because of hCG, a women’s fertility drug, which is considered a close relative to steroids.

Two things have already come out of this story: 1) Wow, Manny is being suspended for 50 games, this policy really must be working.  and 2) It happened this year.  First, no player is immune from the steroids/PED’s discussion at this point.  Players great, mediocre, and crappy have all been  exposed, and any player who plays baseball should expect to be under suspicion.  Once upon a time it was innocent until proven guilty, but with the slew of steroid/PED users being exposed over the years, it has now become guilty until proven innocent.

People will disuss this issue and say that this means the drug testing policy baseball has in place is working.  But I wholeheartedly disagree!  You know when a system works?  When people are so afraid of the system that they don’t even dare test it.  Suspending Manny 50 games is merely a slap on the wrist.

You know what MLB should do, if they really wanted to get rid of this issue in their game?

Take away their money.  There should be a clause in every baseball player’s contract that if he fails a drug test, the team he plays on can void 1/10 of the contract he originally signed– no matter how far along in the contract he is.  In other words with Manny, not only would he be suspended 50 games under this policy, but he would be docked a remarkable $4.5 million!  Fail the drug test a second time, and you’re suspended a season, and 1/3 of your contract.  Fail the drug test a third time, and you’re suspended for life, and you’re contract is completely voided.

I guarantee you baseball players would respond differently.  I personally believe that MLB players don’t take the policy seriously enough still.  Cause in the realm of things, what’s 50 games?  In college if you plagerize a paper, even a few lines without giving that source credit, you get expelled from the school.  Your grade doesn’t get reduced a few letter grades, the university says “bye bye, see you later, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”  IF you cheat in a regular job and get caught, you get canned.  But in the green pastures of MLB if you get caught, you get slapped… on the wrist.

You always hear players say that they didn’t know that what they were taking was wrong, or they don’t think they were taking something illegal, but that in my estimation is because the system is too soft.  Watch how many players use that line if you docked them millions of dollars for their stupidity/arrogance.  Probably none.  You know why?  Because they’d be mortified of losing tons of money!

You make the policy so stern that players become scared to even test it.

Imagine a player who signed a seven year contract with a team worth say $100 million, and is in the last year of tht deal.  Imagine said player failing a drug test in his final year of the contract.  He’d lose $10 million!  And if the team didn’t owe him that much, they could simply demand that he pays them that.

Steroids in baseball would be gone faster then you could say HGH.  Because whether they love the game, or not, baseball players play baseball for the money.  They say they’d play for free, well I’d like to see them do that for a year.  If you really take a chunk out of their exploding bank accounts, maybe others would think twice.

Players know what they put into their bodies.  These guys are machines and their bodies are their temples, and anyone who thinks that players just sort of go with the flow when it comes to what goes in their body is a fool.  An athlete can be naive, but he’s aware of what goes in his body.  You don’t kill yourself for years just to get to the majors and then go, “ya just put in me whatever you like, I trust you.”  No, it doesn’t work like that.

Now the problem with this proposal is that the Players Union would never in a million years go for it.  But it’s fun to dream.  They say it’s tough to get rid of drugs in baseball?  I beg to differ.  If you really lay down the law, and hit these pampered athletes were it hurts most– their wallet– I think things would change swiftly and drastically.

Baseball can clean their sport of drugs, but they’re just not willing to go to the extreme to do it.  Because of that, more stories like this will continue to come out, and steroids and PED’s will continue to be an issue in the national pastime.

Photo: Reuters

SCOTT JACOBS

The Chicago Cubs coasted to 97 wins, put a great deal of separation between them and the rest of the NL Central, and convincingly rolled to the best record in the National League. Fans, experts, anyone with a voice began chanting, “This is the year. This is when the stars will allign, hell will freeze over, and the Cubs will finally win a championship.”

O Chicago, if it was only so easy.

Wait till next year? Sounds about right, after the Los Angeles Dodgers stunningly pushed the Cubbies to the brink of elimination, obliterating the North Siders in a pair at Wrigley to take a commanding 2-0 lead in this best of five series.

Maybe it’s really not shocking. Maybe we’re just naive buying into the notion that the law of physics says after a century of futility and frustration a team has to be due. These Cubs don’t look elite. And right now, they don’t look like they’re going to fulfill the destiny that their loyal faithful thought they would.

Instead, the last game (probably) played at Wrigley this year was a classic dud. A 10-3 spanking to LA, a team that has just come out of nowhere to not only win the NL West, but to look like a prime contender to win the National League. The baby bears looked liked they didn’t belong as they committed three (count ‘em) THREE errors in the second inning.

Not only did the Cubs drop two to the Dodgers, they dropped two at home, in the friendly (although the spattering of boos didn’t sound so friendly today) confines of Wrigley Field.

The Cubs made four errors on the night but the Dodgers earned this one. They scored on a bunt, they got it done on gapers, and once again Manny Ramirez came through with another long home run. Man, has he been the perfect pickup for a Dodgers team now one win away from their first playoff series win in 20 years! You can say all you want to about C.C. Sabathia, but we might look back when it’s all said and done, and crown Manny as the greatest mid-season pickup of this year. The guy has been brilliant, and the Dodgers have been great since they landed him.

As for the Cubs? Well, they’re once again displaying why regular season success means nothing. There’s a reason so many teams win the World Series as a wild card, or road team. Seeds mean virtually nothing in baseball. When you break it down the four teams are so closely matched for the most part that a Dodgers series victory wouldn’t be monumental.

Devastating to Cubbies fans, yes. But world-breaking, mind blowing, no, not really.

We saw this with Seattle in 2001 when they won 116 games and didn’t even make the World Series. So if the Cubs get knocked out, no one should be amazed. It’s a shame for Chicago if it happens. And it makes you wonder if it will ever happen, but outside of the Windy City it’s just baseball being baseball.

In a five game series anything can happen. Great pitching, timely hitting, good defense, and a relief staff that gets hot at just the right time is what it takes. The Dodgers have it.

I’m starting to believe.

Unfortunately, it’s no longer in the Cubs.

SCOTT JACOBS

The Yankees found out earlier this week that nothing lasts forever.  The Mets are wondering why they keep getting trampled by the Marlins, who stomped on New York’s post-season hopes for the second year in a row.

That means, that the Milwaukee Brewers, who beat the Chicago Cubs behind another brilliant performance from C.C. Sabathia 3-1, are going to the playoffs for the first time, since 1982!

For the Mets and their fans, it was another devastating way to close the season. New York looked well on its way to a playoff spot (and redemption) a couple weeks ago, but yesterday the Phillies sealed off another NL East crown, and today, the Marlins dusted off the “ol’ does any team play in bigger in games that you’re not supposed to win” jerseys to end Shea Stadium.

So here’s how the NL Playoffs will look.  Two teams from the same division cannot face each other in the first round, so here are the NLDS matchups:

3) Los Angeles Dodgers versus 1) Chicago Cubs
4) Milwaukee Brewers versus 2) Philadelphia Phillies

I said at the beginning of the year, that the only way the Mets don’t win the division is if they collapse again.  Well, they did.  More interestingly though our the picks we made at around the All-Star Break .  Surprisingly, some of us did very well.

SCOTT JACOBS

The Angels and Dodgers played a truly bizarre game last night. If you haven’t heard about it (likely improbable, if not impossible by now), the Angels lost a game in which they no-hit (literally, but not technically: I’ll elaborate in a minute) the Dodgers.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim had five hits. The Dodgers had none. And yet, because of a few errors and a sacrifice fly, the “real” LA team in this Freeway Series won a game that they basically didn’t earn.

The combined pitching efforts and brilliance of Jered Weaver and Jose Arredondo went all for not, as the Dodgers won the strangest game my memory can recall.

Here’s the thing though: this is not exactly a cool story. In fact, if I was an Angels fan I’d be sick to my stomach. In what other sport can you fail to do the main objective and win?

I’ve never heard of such a thing.

It’s such a weird story I can’t even make a reasonable comparison.

Now, let’s not lose sight of the fact that the Angels five hits got them no runs. So give credit to the Dodgers pitching too. But the mere fact that a team can win without putting the ball in a place where the defense can’t get it simply astounds me.

I had always wondered if scenarios like this truly did happen. After all, A.J. Burnett pitched a no hitter for the Marlins once against San Diego where he walked NINE guys. Nine.

Think about that for a moment. You could no hit a team for nine innings, but walk six in one inning, get an error or two, and four or five runs could cross the plate. It really adds a new dimension to the question: are hits slightly over-rated?

After all, there is no certainty that the team who gets the most hits will win. I’m sure a percentage on that is floating around the internet, and your odds are better if you do get more hits, but maybe this game proves something else:

It’s about the LOB (Left on Base). The Dodgers got four guys on base through three walks and an error. The Dodgers capitalized once. The Angels got runners on base through five hits and four walks. Yet, they failed to score.

So is this game small proof that LOB is more important then hits?

The other thing that was wild about the game was that it wasn’t a no-hitter. The Dodgers didn’t need the ninth inning because they had the lead, so Los Angeles of Anaheim (I hate that name) didn’t get credited for a no-hitter.

Any way you look at it, it just screams, “huh?”

The one guy that scored was Matt Kemp, who got on base in the first place from a slow rolling ground ball that Weaver was unable to field cleanly. Then a throwing error by catcher Jeff Mathis allowed Kemp to make his way to third, where a sacrifice fly later allowed him to score.

Does this game prove anything about the little things of the game? No. Does it really prove anything? Not really. Trying to figure out this game sort of makes you wonder: could someone throw a perfect game and… lose?

Consider: A perfect game is not allowing a hit or a walk. The Dodgers didn’t get their run from a walk and it obviously wasn’t from a hit. So I guess, basing it on that fact, you could feasibly lose a game even if you threw a perfect game.

Could you imagine?

A no, well 8 inning no hitter, is tough enough to pitch and then lose. But could you imagine if a pair of errors caused a guy who threw a perfect game to lose?

After hearing about this wacky game, nothing is beyond the realm of possibility in sports.

But for those that point out this proves the beauty of the game, I have just one thing to say.

I hope you have a better argument then that.